1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for processing data in a memory of an IC card.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an IC (Integrated Circuit) card which incorporates an IC chip constituted by an erasable nonvolatile memory and a control element such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) has attracted attention as a new portable data storing medium. This IC card causes the control element to access the memory and selectively performs data input/output for an external apparatus.
In order to use this IC card in various applications, the memory is divisionally defined as a plurality of data files, and each data file is divisionally defined as a plurality of areas. In addition, definition data representing a physical position and the like of each data file and each area are stored in the memory. The control element refers to the definition data to manage the memory area.
In a conventional IC card, however, since all of data file definition data each used to define a data file are stored in a memory having a memory area of a predetermined size, the number of data files which can be defined in a memory area is limited. In addition, since area definition data each for defining an area in a data file are stored in the same manner as described above, the number of areas which can be defined in each data file is limited.
For this reason, a demand has arisen for an IC card capable of efficiently managing a memory area.